By John Schwing

WESTPORT — More than a week has passed since the body of a 62-year-old man, reported missing last December, was found in a shallow retention pond at a Greens Farms Road office complex, but the investigation into his death still awaits key findings from the state medical examiner’s autopsy.

The autopsy report on Errol Whyte, a Stamford man reported missing Dec. 30 after his SUV was abandoned on a local stretch of Interstate 95, is “pending further investigation,” a spokesman for the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said this week.

Any police investigation into the circumstances surrounding Whyte’s death awaits the autopsy report, Lt. Eric Woods, the Police Department spokesman, said Tuesday.

“Once we have those results, our investigators will have a better idea what they are working with,” Woods said in emailed comments.

Whyte, whose body was discovered April 3 in the retention pond on the property of 55-57 Greens Farms Road, was last seen leaving his son’s Bridgeport home on the evening of last Dec. 29 as he planned to return to his home in Stamford, police in his hometown said at the time.

His red Ford Explorer SUV was later found abandoned on the shoulder of southbound I-95, roughly between the Hillspoint and Hales road overpasses in Westport. That location was across the highway’s buffer from Greens Farms Road and the westerly entrance to the two-building office complex.

Police said they found Whyte’s keys, two cellphones and wallet in the vehicle, although there was no money or driver’s license in the wallet.

Whyte was reported missing the next day, and his whereabouts remained unknown — despite Stamford police investigators’ expansion of the search to the tri-state area — until his body was found last week.

Asked if the retention pond is currently considered a crime scene, Woods replied that it is not.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.